


Just like honey

by hadesinfleurs



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Comedy, Romantic Fluff, Unresolved Romantic Tension, armagedidn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22931818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hadesinfleurs/pseuds/hadesinfleurs
Summary: Every living creature in this world is worthy of love, he believed.But you, oh you, my dearest. There's no measure that equals the amount of love you truly deserve. No tenderness could ever be so tender when it comes to you. Before you all adoration is insufficient. No arms could ever be so gentle to hold you as you deserve to be held.Yet please, my darling, please let me be the one to try.In which they try to figure what it means to be alive in a world that hasn't ended.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Just like honey

"What now?"

"What now." Crowley repeated the question mechanically, whilst also having the courtesy to remove any interrogative aspect of the original sentence.

They had been walking side by side in silence for a couple of minutes since they left the bus stop. They didn't talk much in the bus either. Aziraphale kept staring at his own restless hands for most of the time, and Crowley was just too damn tired to engage in reality. Every now and then he would feel the angel's inquisitive eyes peeking at him, as if expecting him to say something that would get them out of trouble. Like now.

_"What now?_ " Aziraphale asked once again, more incisively, now that he was aware that Crowley was not listening until then.

Crowley was halfway to repeat the same words when something in Aziraphale's tone finally caught his attention. Turning back to him he found the angel death glaring at him. 

"What now..." Aziraphale took a deep, infuriated breath, inflating his chest out of pure exasperation that Crowley could be so spaced out at such a crucial moment. "Well, I don't know what to do now. That was it, I think."

Aziraphale let out his frustration in a long, powerless sigh. It was not his fault that he didn't know what to do next. Neither did him.

"Do you think they will come for us?" The angel looked at his side while sharing this worry, then looked back to Crowley. He seemed to be anywhere but there. "I mean, of course they'll come for us, but perhaps... just not tonight? Sure we somehow sabotaged an event six thousand years in the making but I don't think there is possibly an infraction terrible enough to force the Head Office to work an extra shift."

"Hard enough to force a demon to work a single shift." Crowley agreed, filling his need for a reply with a common sense that didn't require much thinking. "Maybe in a couple of days. Tomorrow, depending on how pissed they are with us."

"Tomorrow?" Aziraphale was not expecting that prediction. "That soon?"

"Had any plans?" 

"No - not quite, I rather... Never thought about what I would like to do with my last day on Earth." The angel raised his brows, baffled with the unfamiliarity of that thought. "To be fair I never really thought there would actually be one."

"Your boss said it would."

"Yes, but to a certain point you must admit it did look like the 'We'll-buy-it-later' kind of a situation.” Aziraphale was bothered by how serene Crowley seemed to be. “Aren't you the least afraid?"

“Of what, dying?”  
  
Who said anything about dying, for God's sake. Couldn't Crowley be a little more elusive about the unfoldings of their punishment.

“Yes, my dear.” He answered, stiffly. “Dying.”

“Not really. I mean, it can't be as bad as Falling, can it?” (“I wouldn't know.” The angel answered, testier than usual with the dismissively way Crowley was handling this topic.) “Can't be as bad as losing a friend. At least we are in this together. ”

Aziraphale opened his mouth for a reply that didn't come.

Crowley was also surprised with how calm he felt – maybe due to fatigue, yes, moving a car out of sheer will and stopping time could drain a bit of the energy necessary to panic, but he really felt in peace. It was better to be facing imminent death next to Aziraphale than somehow escaping from it without him.

He looked to his own side, confused to notice Aziraphale was no longer walking beside him. Looking back he found the angel had stopped a few steps behind, looking right at him. Crowley was about to ask what had happened when he noticed something in his expression.

Aziraphale was _moved_ by his words.

Crowley tried to recall what exactly he had said and once realizing how sentimental it might have sounded, he tried to articulate an explanation. His lips were halfway elaborating the first word when Aziraphale's soothing voice interrupted him.

“I'm happy to be by your side as well, my dear. There's nowhere else I'd rather be.”

Crowley adjusted his sunglasses, feeling uncomfortable with the open honesty of that moment. Aziraphale was usually very evasive when it came to their friendship. Seeing how serious he professed his last words made it seem a lot more real.

They were in fact probably going to die.

Crowley felt like lightning the mood a bit and also like completely changing the direction of that conversation.

“Yeah, alright. Ditto. I mean _well_ , every living thing has to die at some point, right? That's what makes life so important, after all.” He turned on his heels to look for something in the surroundings. He stretched his arm to pluck a small plump rose from a tree in someone's garden. "Here." He handed it to Aziraphale, who took it between his hands not entirely sure about the purpose of it. "A dead thing. Well, a former living thing. Cheer up."

Aziraphale let out an exasperated sigh, yet carefully putting the small flower in his inner pocket.

“You make it sound so simple.”

“That's because it is. That's how humans do it.”  
  
“We are not humans. The end of our existence is not exactly separated from the end of universe itself.”

“There's a first time for everything, right? Humans are so chill about it, why shouldn't-”

“Crowley, where are we going?” Aziraphale interrupted him, after a long look trying to recognize their surroundings. “I thought we were heading to your place?”

“We are, I just need a drink first.” He rubbed his face with his palms, yearning for some fine whisky. "Don't worry, I know a place and we are close."

  
"A place?" Aziraphale checked, confused, his pocket watch which had not seen a wind in more than a hundred years. "At this late hour? Is it open?"

  
"Even better."

* * *

After a quarter of an hour or so walking aimessly – it seemed, they finally arrived at the place Crowley had described. It was nothing like Crowley described. The lights were all out, the windows were sealed with wooden planks and overall it appeared to have been completely abandoned for at least a year. Aziraphale looked back at Crowley as if asking for a confirmation that it was the right place and found him with a wide and pleased smile on his face.

“Great thing, they didn't demolish it yet.” He folded his sunglasses and placed them inside his jacket before going forward. “Come on.”

With a snap of his fingers, the doors were open like there had never been a nailed plank barricading them. The lights were dim, once there was only one or two light bulbs still attached to their plugs. (There is just so much a miracle can do.) The floor and surfaces seemed wiped out of any dust probably because Crowley didn't really expect to find an inch layer of dust in an abandoned place.

“You can pick the table, I'll get the bottle.” Crowley nodded his head to indicate a couple of tables left on the corner and disappeared behind the bar counter.

Aziraphale waited, in silence, hearing the clinking sounds of bottles being moved around. He was starting to remember that place – or at least remembering the way Crowley would ramble about it years ago. When he first said he had discovered a new place by the riverside and how much he enjoyed it. There was also something about a live band playing on every Wednesday and actually a rather decent food paired up with the best scotch he ever had.

He remembered it fairly well considering how aware he was to having declined every single one of his invitations to meet said place. Maybe next time, it's a bit late and isn't it kind of chilly for a walk? We can always drink at home and I'm not overall fond of trying new places. He kept postponing it until Crowley never mentioned it again and he assumed he just got tired of going there. It didn't occur him that it could perhaps have been closed after the spam of twenty years or so in which Crowley had told him about it.

The angel hang his coat on the crest rail of the chair and sat down, quietly, feeling a umconfortable sense of guilt. There was a short, half-used candle on top of the table and he miracled it lit. He wished he had said yes to Crowley's invitation at least once. He somehow always assumed there would be a next time and then it wasn't.

Looking around the bar, he could picture if filled with life and music and light from the cheery energy of humans while, sitting alone by a table in the back, a quiet customer would watch everything with a smile.

I wish I had been there with you. Said yes to you more times before it was too late.

“There we go.” Crowley had placed two empty glasses on the table and sat down, opening an old bottle of scotch. “I knew they'd have something in the back.”

He poured a fair amount of liquor for both. “You'll see for yourself what I am talking about.”

Aziraphale had a guess that the whisky from that place was not at all different from any others and Crowley just enjoyed to be there. He felt the demon's eyes staring in expectation when he took the first sip.

Aziraphale smiled. He was right about his assumption.

“It's quite good.” He didn't lie. “You were right.”

“Told ya.” Crowley took a long and satisfied sip from his own glass. The waves of pure joy emanating from his partner made Aziraphale feel warm with endearment.

* * *

Maybe it was indeed some sort of magical liquor. After a while drinking from it and discussing amenities, he felt a lot lighter. Aziraphale found himself laughing for the first time in many days. He was not thinking about Heaven nor Hell nor the Apocalypse. Not even about God. And it felt good for a change. It felt very liberating.

The angel had emptied his glass yet another time when he felt curious about something.

"Have you ever thought about how it must be like to be human?"

"Hell, no."  
  
Aziraphale leaned his head to the side, seeming rather confused about that response. He would've assume Crowley was more enthusiastic about the human lifestyle than he was.

“Why is that?”

“They have most of our doubts and none of our answers. I mean, just look at all the different types of booze humans came up with. They can't have it that easy.” He proceeded, nonchalantly pouring the scotch for both of them and then emptying his own glass in one big sip. A soft and pleasant hiss let out from his clenched teeth. “Do you?”

The amber liquid in his glass reflected the candle's light like glowing magma. Aziraphale moved distractedly the glass between his hands to reinforce this impression. It was beautiful.

“I do, rather. Very often.” A light smile was drawn in his lips. “I think about the way they taste and touch and experience life when they have it so fast.”

“You never liked it fast.”

Aziraphale open his mouth for a reply, but he stopped to study the tone in which it was said. It was not resentment. Crowley said it like a friend who just knew him too well. That was a bittersweet sensation.

“That's right. This is why I think about it so often. I wish I did.”

“I don't think they enjoy it so much either. Every single one of them will pass wishing they had more time.”

“And here we are after thousands and thousands of years wishing for the very same thing.Maybe we are a lot more alike than we think.”

Crowley knew he was talking about humans. For a moment he wished he was talking about something else.

“What would you do with it? More time?”

The way in which he could ask him that without showing the slightest possible interest in his answer was absolutely lovely. Aziraphale entrancedly gazed at the side of his face while he would avert his eyes to any other direction not to face him.

We don't need to talk about it, if you don't want to. It's fine.

“Well, I don't know. What would y-?”

  
“Gimme a sec.”

Aziraphale watched him get up and leave the table for the other side of the bar, disappearing behind a door he assumed to be a liquor storage. He didn't notice they had already finished the first bottle.

Tapping the pocket inside his coat, he sought the small flower Crowley had given him. Pulling it out by the stem, he discovered it had not wilted a single bit since then. Probably by Crowley's intention.

It was pale, soft and simple. His overall experience on Earth was very much alike. But it was also perfect in every way. Crowley was to one to create magic out of the plain, mundane things. He was the one to give it all its colors, rhythm, brightness and warmth.

Maybe this should be my choice if we had more time.

I'd have it even simpler and mundane as it can be just to watch you make it vibrant.

He emptied his glass in one last sip and placed it at the center of the table, miracling some water into it and putting the little rose inside of it. Like that night, he was aware it wouldn't last much longer.

Like that night, he wished it could last forever.

“Aziraphale.” He turned to the side, startled by his own name when Crowley returned out of nowhere and then by how close he was leaning over his chair. Looking dead serious, the demon continued in one single breath: “Do you wanna dance?”

Aziraphale took a second to absorb that question, both confused and alarmed by the urgency in his voice. His eyes were glistening with expectancy.

“I'm sorry?”

“With me.” He added, seemingly something important to add. That interaction sounded a lot cooler in his head. “Would you like to dance with me?”

Out of a better response, the angel just nodded.

“Sure. Of course.” He added, in case his gesture was not clear enough.

Crowley lowered his head, taking a while to process that answer.

“Ok.Great.” He nodded back, trying to recall what he was going for in the first place. As soon as he did, he walked away from the table once again. “One more sec.”

Aziraphale followed him with his eyes when he left for the other corner of the bar once again, but this time turning into a different direction. The door was left open, revealing to be indeed a warehouse of a sort. Next to the door there was an odd machine probably taken from the inside.

Aziraphale left the table and walked towards Crowley with an intrigued look. After a while and a few tweaks here and there, Crowley seemed to get the machine to work. When it shone with several different lights, he came to notice it was an old jukebox.

“Is it working?” He asked, starting to feel oddly enthusiastic about it. They had never danced together before. Never only the two of them.

“Apparently... yes?” Crowley retreated a few steps from the machine, trying to analyse it from a distance. It's lights were on, at least. This was as far as he understood about the correct functioning of a jukebox. “Now we just need-”

He started tapping both the pockets of his jacket and pants, looking for something. Eventually he seemed to have found and showed him, with a pleased smile, a shiny and small coin.

Aziraphale smiled back, gently. Crowley would die before miracling it and doing something remotely close to a magic trick.

He inserted the coin in the machine and pressed a couple of buttons, waiting for it to give any sign to be working. Aziraphale looked at the long wire laying unnoticed and unplugged behind the old jukebox and had the strong feeling it would have worked anyway. But he kept it to himself. If the coin was the most important part for Crowley, it was crucial for the machine.

The arm inside the machine selected one of the discs and placed it in the middle of the player. The first notes started to come out from the speakers and Aziraphale recognized them. He probably didn't hear it more than once, but identified it from something Crowley would every now and then hum while driving.

They stood for a while, allowing the mellow tune to engulf them completely. When the singer's gentle voice joined the melody, they sought each other's eyes.

_Strangers in the night  
Exchanging glances_

They realized at the very same time they wouldn't want it to end. So neither did they know how to start.

Crowley was the one to offer his hand. His expression was the gloomiest it had been during the whole night. But he was determined not to allow the bittersweetness of it all ruin the sweet bit.

Aziraphale took his hand and leaned against his chest. He wanted to savor it. Letting go of as many senses as he possibly could. Then he closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry about the other times." He murmured against Crowley's shoulder.

"Don't worry about that." He heard being murmured back in a dismissively tone. I don't want you to feel guilty about being here now. "'Twas worth the wait."

_What were the chances  
We'd be sharing love  
Before the night was through?_

They danced slowly, their embraced bodies moving so eerily amidst the dim lights. Neither one of them was particularly great at dancing, but it felt perfect. It felt _right_. Aziraphale had the sense both the melody and Crowley would move through him like the tides, as gentle and as tender. He held him so dearly and fondly as the words professed in the song.   
  


That was the first time in which feeling the waves of love emanating from Crowley sunk in his chest like a stone. It felt sad. Regretful.

He regreted every single time he wished to address that sentiment and chose not to.

_We were strangers in the night  
Up to the moment when we said our first hello_

Crowley felt Aziraphale's fingers slowly loosing from his and thought that perhaps he was not in the mood to finish that dance. But the angel's hand slid over his own, gently brushing on his shoulder and nesting behind his neck. 

The music had not yet ended, after all. 

The angel had his eyelids lowered, peering at him under fair and long eyelashes. Seemingly somewhere between distracted and entranced. Aziraphale came to notice how close they were to each other and stared, in a long silence, at Crowley's lips. 

He was _wondering_.

Crowley felt his ears and back getting warmer and warmer under that gaze. When the crystal clear marbles changed their focus to his very own eyes, his mind went completely blank. 

When the angel's eyes went shut, the music has stopped. So did the time and the reality around them. Everything seemed to cease to exist for a minute.

Every living creature in this world is worthy of love, he believed. 

But _you_ , oh you, my dearest. There's no measure that equals the amount of love you truly deserve. No tenderness could ever be so tender when it comes to you. Before you all adoration is insufficient. No arms could ever be so gentle to hold you as you deserve to be held. 

Yet please, my darling, please let me be the one to try.

In the length of a breath – a deep, enamored sigh, Aziraphale crossed the distance between them until there were none. Pressing his lips against his like there was nothing simpler.

Crowley still had his appealed eyes wide open when Aziraphale kissed him.

The touch of the angel's lips was warm and tender. It reminded Crowley of many different, unrelated things that came to him at the very same time. It reminded him of the warmth of sunlight against one's skin - a sensation bound to be lost when one's so used to play with fire. It's easy to forget how gentle fire can be.

He knew that feeling. He recalled it like a long-lost song. That was love, that was what being loved felt like.

Whilst it also tasted very much like honey.

It occurred him too, that possibility. But as soon as he thought about it he decided that he did not want their first kiss to unroll in a farewell scenario, motivated solely by the urgency of maybe not having a second chance to do so.

Crowley held his face between both his hands to gently pull him away.

By staring at Aziraphale's eyes, it was clear as day that none of that had for a second crossed his mind. He leaned his face against the palm, which held it so tenderly, as if reaching for the warm comfort of it. Not a worry in his heart.

You never let me have it my way.

Aziraphale closed his eyes once again when it was Crowley's turn to lean his face and reach for another kiss.

The words he was looking for in that moment were the ones he felt Crowley's kiss to taste like. They felt exactly how he imagined it to, during moments in which he would stare at the demon's lips moving while he spoke and rapidly avert his eyes if he seemed to notice.

They tasted like love. Nothing less. They tasted like a love song. A love poem. A lover's kiss.

Aziraphale found himself leaning in closer, inviting him to kiss him deeper. When he came to notice how sweet it tasted, he realized how much more of it he wanted. And it was a great deal more.

Crowley followed, tightly embracing his whole body as he could evaporate into thin air. His hands pulled the angel closer by both the neck and waist so firmly to his shirt fabric that, in any other scenario, Aziraphale would have warned him against possibly ripping it off. His own fingers, however, were operating in a very similar fashion through the copper locks of hair. Blindly.

That was a much stranger feeling. 

I feel this. Bright and awake as daylight, spreading through me like wine drops into fair fabric. Fiber by fiber by fiber until the stain only made itself bigger. His mouth muffled against Crowley's, he let out a small exclamation after feeling his waist shocking with a solid surface he didn't bother to open his eyes to find out what it was, once that what was pressing him against it was Crowley.

“Are you-?” and “I am, I am sure.” was a non-verbalized yet completely clear dialogue between both parts during the millisecond of hesitation Crowley's hands showed amidst unbuttoning his vest. Aziraphale himself was pulling him closer by both the neck and the lapel of his jacket. After the first purposeful touch, anything that kept his skin over a second away from Crowley's was a second too long. What's with this jacket, anyway, for God's sake take it off already.

“Alright, alright.” Crowley murmured against his lips, obediently, hurrying to remove his own jacket in response to what Aziraphale was not aware of saying out loud.

He felt his body being momentarily lifted and was now sitting on a higher surface. Crowley was actually good at this – a fair surprise for both. As soon as Crowley's shadow was once again cast upon him, Aziraphale reached his hands to pull him back for a kiss. The devil's tongue had its own way of moving inti mately, caressingly against his own. Every now and then he would slide the wet tip of his tongue across his neck and each time it would send him a shiver down his spine. Through his lips long and enamored sighs of delight would come out, then. It was lovely, just lovely how a single touch from the warm inside of Crowley's mouth on his skin could make him feel so many things at once.

By the time Crowley had almost finished unbuttoning his shirt, Aziraphale had his hands blindly groping down his chest, seeking the head of the serpent on his belt. Aziraphale peered through half-shut eyes and found Crowley gazing down on him, intensely and as golden as a sunset. His yellow irises so enlarged with need as the ones of a predator thinking about ways to devour him. By all means, Aziraphale tought. Once he palmed the head of the snake he pulled it closer, as if inviting the demon to grind his body against him. For all matters, his entire being was melting under Crowley's hands and he was completely fine with it. It was such a precious, unveiled feeling. It was so very...

Quiet.

Everything went quiet and it caught their attention. The music had ended.

Both opened their eyes in confusion – Or actually quite the opposite. In a sudden moment of clarity, like the past minutes had gone by under a sort of trance. And that they have found once the spell was lifted was a total mess. Breathing heavily, their eyes ran over each other's dishevelled selves as if they didn't know what has caused this. Aziraphale found himself half-sitting on the bar counter, his tie hanging loosely on the lapel of an almost completely unbuttoned shirt. He had Crowley by the belt, looking as lost as never with both hands on his hips. Slowly he started to loose the grip of his hands, trying to regain a bit of conscience.

“Ahm.” He began, unsure of what to say, brushing his hair back with his fingers. Suddenly he was once again touching the surface of his pockets in look for something. “I think I-?”

Crowley startled at the sound of metal hitting the counter. Aziraphale was staring at him, pulling down the cuff from his shirt, from where a torrent of shiny coins was pouring and rattling against the surface of the counter, for an undetermined amount of seconds. When it finally seamed to have ceased, the coins were falling from the pile to the floor like silvery large drops of rain.

“I'll wait here.” Aziraphale said, patiently, shaking his arm to get rid of any coins that might have gotten stuck in the way.

“Okay.” Said Crowley at almost the same time, grabbing a handful of coins and rushing to the jukebox.

Calmly, as he listened to the sound of the coins rattling inside the machine one by one, Aziraphale finished unbuttoning his shirt.

* * *

"Angel."

  
Crowley saw his own face turn back to answer that call, as Aziraphale was about to enter his apartment with his own body. His eyes never appeared more calm.

"Yes, my dear?"

  
"Are you sure we are on the same page about this?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"More time. With each other, I mean." Crowley, wearing Aziraphale's body, shrug briefly, guarding his hands in his pockets, having yet to remember when was the last time that he could fit his entire hand inside the pockets of his pants. "And you?"

  
Aziraphale raised his eyes for a moment, thinking about the question.

"Nothing out of the ordinary, I think. Picnics. A fireplace. Intercourse. " He briefly tilted his head to the side, as if putting things to consideration. He smiled when he realized how bright were the possibilities as long as they got out of it alive. "Paris, maybe."

"Yeah, that's pretty much it." Crowley nodded positively, looking at his own obscenely lustrous shoes. He was not particularly mad about Paris, though. But assuming they would survive, everything could be a lot nicer.

It was a good thing that he didn't have his car, he thought. There was a long walk ahead to the bookshop and with the Bentley he would probably have done it in minutes. Not more than two whole minutes, if he felt like it.

But it was such a beautiful night to be alive on the planet Earth. The stars were almost fading under the touch of sunlight emerging from the end of the street, but the deep ocean blue had not yet surrendered to the advances of the rising sun. He never noticed how the clouds could look pink at sunrise. 

Perhaps they couldn't. And they just seemed very pink.

He was humming a very loving all his way back to Soho. Once or twice finding himself cheerfully clicking his heels together.


End file.
